


The Man From Oxenfurt

by swordgirl



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mr. & Mrs. Smith Fusion, Assassins & Hitmen, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Other, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23623612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordgirl/pseuds/swordgirl
Summary: Jaskier is an assassin from the school of Oxenfurt, assigned a target with no name, picture, or any information besides the target's species (witcher) and the fact that he trained under Vesemir. His luck changes when he meets another witcher from the same school in a tavern in Posada, and he vows that he'll build a life with Geralt with the money from this last assignment.If only it could be that easy.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, since Jaskier is keeping information from Geralt, and vice versa, there are some identity issues that makes their relationship dubcon. However, neither of them are out to deliberately deceive the other specifically for sex, only to protect them from the dangerous elements if their identity is known, and they both do genuinely love the other.

The severed head of his latest mark made a satisfying _thunk_ when Jaskier dropped it on Valdo Marx’s desk.

“You’re late,” Valdo said without looking up.

“I might have been able to kill him faster if anyone had actually told me he was half-ogre,” Jaskier said pointedly.

“If you’d read the file that was provided to you-”

“The file that didn’t even include a picture of what he looked like? That file?”

“Would you like me to stab your next target in the throat for you as well?”

Jaskier tried not to grimace openly, but the idea of Valdo Marx being discreet when he carried out an assassination was, well, the man was just not discreet. And nothing made Jaskier long for a different profession than being forced to kill an innocent witness simply to save his own life. This last one had come close, the half-ogre broke out of the bonds Jaskier had set expecting a human, and nearly ran into a nearby house. If Jaskier hadn’t managed to uproot the tree to block his way, he would’ve had to kill an entire family last night. “No, but I do expect to at least know the _species_ of the man I’m meant to kill,” he replied with a glare.

Valdo gave him an unpleasant smile before tossing Jaskier the file for his next target. Jaskier moved to the side so that it clattered to the floor and held out his hand for the payment, which was a small bag of coins that went into Jaskier’s pocket in a flash before the hand was held out once more.

“We agreed on 200 crowns for his head,” Valdo reminded him.

“He was half-ogre! Do you know how _heavy_ his head is?”

Valdo sighed theatrically. “I’ll double the reward for that one,” he nodded to the file on the floor.

Jaskier grumbled as he picked it up and opened it, then his eyes popped open in shock. The file was just three sentences, but one of those sentences was “Reward: 2000 crowns.” He checked to make sure he looked suitably disgruntled before he turned around to face Valdo again. “At least this time, I know his species,” he sauntered out.

Unfortunately, that was nearly all he knew. The Butcher of Blaviken didn’t even have a name, just his species, and that he had trained with Vesemir from that wolf school, what was its name again?

* * *

By the end of the week, Jaskier had spent nearly all of his 200 crowns on food, drink, and useless information that brought him no closer to finding the name of the witcher who had slaughtered innocents in a town square. He had also used the last of the oil for his lute, so he hoped his bad mood would not spill into his music when he performed that afternoon.

Which meant, naturally, that it did.

“Abort yourself!” a particularly grumpified tavern patron threw a roll at him.

Well, food was food. Jaskier bent down to pick up the least rotten of the food aimed at his head and shoved them down his pants. The tavern was mostly full, but there was thankfully a person in one corner who hadn’t thrown even a mean look his way.

“You must have a review for me,” Jaskier hoped he sounded charming. “Three words or less.”

“They don’t exist,” the stranger slid something across the table.

It was a crown. “I’m sorry?” Jaskier croaked as he pocketed the coin.

“The creatures in your song, they don’t exist.”

So, he had actually been paying attention to the lyrics rather than just the emotions coming out of the music, which meant he had some training in resisting magic. Interesting. Jaskier sat up a little straighter and looked more closely at the man’s handsome features. “Wait a minute,” he couldn’t help but grin, “gold eyes, white hair, you must be Geralt of Rivia!”

The man stood up abruptly, and sure enough, there was a wolf medallion hanging from his neck. Such luck! Surely this man knew Vesemir and everyone he’d trained. He could help Jaskier find the Butcher!

“I’m Jaskier the bard,” he continued, following Geralt out of the tavern full of unappreciative people.

“Fuck off, bard,” Geralt didn’t look at him.

“I won’t be but silent back-up. And, yes, you’re right, maybe real adventures would make better stories. And you, sir, smell chock-full of them, amongst other things. I mean, what is that? Is that onion? It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you smell of death and destiny! Heroics, and heartbreak,” Jaskier tried to inject as much charm into his voice as possible. Real charm, not magic, since Geralt had a medallion.

“It’s onion,” Geralt responded, but there was just the smallest upturned corner to his mouth, and given the other “reviews” Jaskier had received that afternoon, he would take it. He just had to be nice and subtle, get Geralt to trust him enough to reveal the name of Vesemir’s pupil, and then he could get his 4,000 crowns. Maybe Geralt would even help. Surely, a man generous enough to hand over his last coin would also be moral enough to care about a slaughtered village.

“You wouldn’t happen to know another witcher called the Butcher of Blaviken, would you?”

Geralt responded by turning around and punching Jaskier straight in the stomach.

Jaskier let out a grunt of surprise and pain as he fell to the ground, but the witcher must have been holding back, because he was only out of breath, and none of his organs were damaged. Even with his half-fae constitution, a real, forceful punch from a witcher could have blown him several feet back, and his organs a few feet further. That left only one logical conclusion, that Geralt knew who the Butcher was, but didn’t want Jaskier to know, most likely because the witcher had done damage to the reputations of witchers all over the Continent, and Geralt was understandably upset at the reminder.

“Got it, don’t say that again,” Jaskier wheezed. So, Geralt would _not_ help him find the Butcher, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind. Besides, when Jaskier looked up, he found himself with a rather nice view of a lovely bottom.

That was the moment Jaskier decided. He would find the Butcher of Blaviken, kill him, and take his head back to Oxenfurt. Then he would leave the business forever to travel with Geralt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier learns something and makes a decision that will definitely never come back to bite him in the ass.

Besides telling the bard not to touch his horse, Geralt silently brooded for the next hour, which Jaskier thought was unfair. All he had done was ask questions about his life and his coworkers and, yeah, okay, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. Witchers were notoriously secretive, this Geralt fellow the most enigmatic of all, and he needed the Wolf’s favor if he was to have help finding the Butcher. So, besides a few mumbled lyrics, meant to put the witcher at ease and convince him of Jaskier’s foppishness, he kept silent as Geralt accepted a contract for a devil. However, he did wrinkle his nose at the price. He wouldn’t have killed a human for that price, never mind a devil.

“I’m guessing devils don’t exist either?” he finally said as they walked up to historic Dol Blathanna, playing ignorance.

Geralt, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer, preferring to sniff the air and dart off to a Sylvan named Torque. And then things got a little fuzzy after that.

Jaskier woke up to Geralt struggling against ropes that bound them together. “This is the part where we escape,” he deliberately made his voice shaky, hoping to provoke Geralt’s protective instincts.

“This is the part where they kill us,” Geralt growled in a voice that was definitely _not_ too quiet. Okay, so no protective instincts. Or at least, none for humans.

A red-haired elf entered and started to beat Geralt, until the witcher started to make small noises of pain. The assassin felt no small amount of worry at the sound.

Gathering together all his nerve, Jaskier started to insult the elf with sarcastic Elder until she slammed the lute into his middle. Melitele’s tits, that hurt.

“Leave off,” Geralt shouted until the elf started smashing the lute over his body again, calling him unworthy, tainted. Well, it looked like protective instincts were being awakened after all.

The least he could do, once he recovered his breath, was return the favor.

Rather than attack him, the elf’s voice became a purr, and she reached down to wrench his head up to meet murderous eyes that told him just how bad of an idea this was.

And then Geralt must be have done something, because she dropped Jaskier’s head and went back to him, and then there’s the crack of skull on skull, and she flew backward with a cough.

Jaskier felt a flash of satisfaction upon seeing the blood on her face, then concern crept up against his will when she kept coughing. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked the white-haired elf who entered with Torque.

“She’s sick,” said Torque. He introduced Filavandrel as the white-haired elf denied his title and went to help the red-haired elf.

“You were stealing for them,” Geralt’s voice was soft.

“I felt for them,” and then Torque said-

He said-

“No, they chose to leave,” Jaskier’s voice sounded weak, even for his condition.

Filavandrel’s words and gaze pinned him to the ground as he listed humanity’s crimes against the elves. When Jaskier didn’t respond, Filavandrel returned his gaze to the red-haired elf. They muttered something too low for Jaskier to hear, but Geralt clearly could.

“One human,” said the witcher, “and you can let him go.”

Filavandrel walked closer, warning Geralt of what would happen if he let Jaskier go, about all the people who would die _on both sides_.

“The lesser evil,” Geralt’s voice still had that strange, pleading quality. “No matter what you do, you’ll come out bloody and hating yourself.”

Filavandrel and Geralt started speaking too quietly for Jaskier to hear, not that he was paying that much attention anyway. There was something brimming under the surface of those two sentences, like a scab.

“You think this is about pride!” Filavandrel shouted. “The Great Cleansing, humans called it. I call it digging a mass grave for everyone I loved. And now, Valdo Marx’s band of assassins proudly watch these very fields grow, our babies fertilizer for their grain.”

Jaskier’s blood froze in his veins. Filavandrel was out for blood, there was no way he could leave alive. Geralt was still trying, telling them to run away and make a new life somewhere else. Then the red-haired elf stood up and provided a wicked-looking dagger, promising the elves were ready to fight.

“Wait,” Torque started reminding them that Geralt had spared him, but Filavandrel ordered him away.

Jaskier swallowed, afraid to move a muscle. Maybe Geralt could still survive this, and then, surely, he would help take Jaskier back to-

Back to Posada, back to the people he knew had taken coin for elf ears and heads.

“If you must kill me, I am ready,” said Geralt “But I ask you, let the Sylvan take the human back to Posada. He’s just a bard. He has not hurt your people.”

Jaskier closed his eyes. Geralt had no idea how untrue that was. And yet he held his tongue until Filavandrel stood beside them, dagger held out, while Geralt bared his neck..

Jaskier started to struggle in earnest, to no avail. If Geralt couldn’t break the ropes, a human had no chance.

Filavandrel raised his dagger.

“Valdo Marx is in Lettenhove!” he shouted.

The elves and Torque froze.

“How do you know this?” Filavandrel demanded.

Jaskier thought quickly and decided, since they wouldn’t think well of him, he might as well make their negative view skew toward ignorance than malice. “Everyone knows his wares are the, um,” Jaskier quailed under the red-haired elf’s glare, “not the best, obviously,” he flicked his eyes between the elves and the pieces of the lute. Whatever story the elves filled in, he would play along.

“He sold you this?” the red-haired elf gestured to the lute.

Jaskier nodded while Torque untied him.

With a snarl, she grabbed the pieces of the lute and beat the pieces on the ground until they were splinters, before storming off and returning with another one. “Never put yourself in such a man’s debt for a piece of trash,” she thrust the new lute at him.

“Thank you,” he didn’t need to hide his eyes, his tears did that for him.

Geralt quietly handed over all their coin to Filavandrel, and Jaskier felt even more awful. It must have shown on his face, because Geralt offered to let him ride Roach when they left the cave.

“No,” Jaskier offered Geralt a smile that he didn’t even try to pretend was real. “I’m alright, nothing a good song won’t cure,” he started to strum. “When a humble bard, graced a ride along, with Geralt of Rivia, along came this song,” he sang with no enchantment in his voice.

Geralt kept Roach at a slow amble, and Jaskier quietly gave up his contract on the Butcher. Oxenfurt was clearly not what he thought they were, so he was never going back. And now that he had a new identity and a witcher by his side, they would doubtlessly leave him be.


End file.
